Cobb is on his feet in an instant, body tight with energy and adrenaline that he hadn't had before, his fingertips brushing against the grip of his blaster. Nevermind being ill and bone-tired, everything he's been preparing for is upon them- the past few weeks have boiled down to this moment. And too soon, damn the snitch.
Behind him, Zart's recruited a few of those who'd not yet fallen asleep to rouse those that have, trying not to instill more panic than necessary. But he tunes them out, because, beyond the door before him, he can hear a couple dozen pairs of racing footsteps- the current shift, running for their lives, towards the sleep room. He leaps aside just in time, the door opening with a sudden whoosh, bodies pouring into the room.
Through the thicket, Cobb's eyes land on armored figures that he knows, without a doubt, are the guards he's been told about. "Aw, hell."
His teeth grind together, but that's all the concern he lets himself show as he draws his blaster from his side and raises it. He steels his face into a mask of focus, and peers back over his shoulder, scanning the chaos of both combined shifts for Zart or Arik.
An endeavor that he quickly gives up on, because there's too much going on.
"Get 'em to the warehouse. Now!"
It's then that Cobb Vanth whips around and fires his first shot into the hallway, into the chest of the leading guard. The henchman crumbles, and something inside of him growls. Let's get it done.
The last of the slaves passes by him, and he lets loose, firing into the crowd before him without abandon as his rescuers rush out of the room in a frenzy, intent on reaching the hidden gun cache before he's shot down. So long as he can keep a distance between them and him, though, Cobb knows things will be alright. It's not like the guards have blasters, after all- their halberds will do nothing from afar. The odds are in his favor.
Until his shoulder spasms. Until his arm jerks so hard that his next shot misses.
He curses. Then, things really turn ugly.
WHAM!
Cobb doesn't fully manage to bite off a cry, staggering beneath the weight of the flat side of an axehead. His eyes blink back open, muscle and bone protesting on the right side, blood trickling warm and sticky down from a small cut at his hairline. His ear rings, but he ignores it and regains his footing just in time to avoid another swing from the halberd beside him.
"Oh, kark," he realizes with a groan, "you fellas have actually been trained."
An under-the-arm shot sends the guard next to him flying into the wall. He grits his teeth, shakes his head- he can do this. He can.
He doesn't hesitate to open fire again, and some distant part of him is back in Taanti's saloon in Freetown, gunning down the goons from the Mining Guild. Cobb is angry. Cobb is laughing. The guards are all going to die.
There are too many of them. Their halberds are too long. He has no armor.
His arm spasms again.
A blade digs into the skin on his side, the side of his bad arm. He gasps, suddenly breathless, and then he is on the ground, slowly bleeding out. An ax raises high above him, ready to come down-
Ptcheeew!
A flash of red flies over him, and the armored body falls back with a thud.
Suddenly, Zart and Arik are on either side of him, hoisting him up, a flurry of blaster bolts all around them. Cobb grunts, the pain shooting from his side to his neck, but he hasn't felt this relieved in a long time. They came back. He's been saved.
"You okay?" One of them asks.
"Yeah," he wheezes. "Good timin'."
"We got you, Vance." Arik vows, a nod of dark promise on his right. He presses Cobb's blaster back into his hands. "Can you stand?"
Cobb nods. "Jus' gimme a minute. You boys got this?"
"You bet." Zart grins.
"You just sit tight for now, Vance," Arik assures him.
"Okay," he murmurs, and suddenly he's alone again, wobbling as he staggers over to the nearest wall for support. He leans one hand up against it, using the other to probe at his wound. He winces against a wave of throbbing pain, and curses. That guard got him good.
Deep breaths. He needs to get his breathing under control. He needs to focus.
He inhales, and the air tastes as coppery as blood. With his next exhale, the sounds of the battle return to him- the blasterfire, the screams. Cobb chances a glance up; the floor is littered with bodies from both sides. His only consolation is the fact that most of those bodies are clad in dark brown armor: The guards are struggling.
His wound isn't deep; it'll stop bleeding soon enough. He can go on.
Cobb pushes himself away from the wall, and raises his weapon back up. It's time to finish what he started, once and for all.
With that thought comes a new burst of energy, of strength, and the painful points in his head and side fade into the background with his shoulder. He raises his chin, and follows the direction of the action, fading down the hall and around the bend. He feels a spark of pride for these people, their progress. They didn't need him to escape, but the push of courage and the resources he's given them. Not that Cobb would ever leave them now, when they've- when he- have come this far. They've almost won.
He catches up quickly with victory on his mind, nodding to Zart when the boy spots him. "How many we got left, kid?"
"Not many. We're close." Zart smiles, then, giddy and genuine in the youthful way that he probably never has been.
Cobb can't hold the quirk of his own lips, and lays a hand on the kid's shoulder as he passes by him. "Good. Let's make it count."
Together, they weave through the group- and, oh, a few more had abandoned them for the warehouse exit than he'd thought- ready to lead the others to the end. Arik joins them, and the trio is complete again, marching at the head of a revolution almost seen through. He and the people behind him, they make a beautiful picture of defiance, the young and old alike, armed to the teeth and standing so straight that their postures rival that of a Pau'an's.
A few more guards fall, and their path is finally clear.
This is it.
The back entrance to the throne room is around the next corner, and they face no resistance other than the door- and it's open in seconds. The others swarm into the room around him, taking down the minimal security within. These last guards are too surprised to react before they're lifeless corpses laying on the floor.
For a moment, everything is silent. And then, the unmistakable hiss of rage echoes off the walls.
Zerem, Cobb already knows. Some part of him freezes, overcome with emotion. Fear, anger, glee- it's all there. The man who had ruled the entirety of his youth is about to die. At last.
Arik glances at him in concern, his eyes asking a single question.
Cobb smiles, and then he enters.
.
"Funny," he says even before he's stepped around the throne and laid eyes on him. "All the shit between us, an' this is only the second time we've seen each other in person."
And then Zerem is in sight, statuesque in build, his ashen-gray skin a contrast to the dark color of his throne, the mahogany of his robes. The carmine strips on each side of his nose are pale, bringing out the utter shock in his silver eyes. He doesn't settle nearly quick enough for Cobb to miss it. "Vanth."
Cobb would offer a mocking bow if he didn't think he'd double over in pain.
"How is it, kung," Zerem spits, "that you looked better off when you belonged to me?"
He can't withhold a scoff of contempt. "Well, actually, I looked jus' fine until you sent Bray after me. Chuba doompa, dopa-maskey kung." Cobb catches himself. "But you were wrong to think he'd actually see it through." Feeling bare, he shrugs. "I'm only here 'cause he killed himself. Good man 'til the end, unlike some.
"All this, it's on you. You made the wrong call, Zerem, and it's high time someone remedies that."
A look of sudden understanding flashes across his face, followed by a flicker of fear that's quickly masked with absolute rage. "Kill him."
No one moves. Cobb can practically feel the uncertainty radiating from those behind him, and his lips twitch in amusement. "Yeah, that ain't gonna work, pal. There's been a slight…change in command."
The slaver snarls, beyond words, the light catching on his pointed teeth.
Cobb takes that as permission to continue. Bray is on his mind again- Bray and all the other bounty hunters he's faced, and he'd never forgive himself if he didn't try to ask. "Tell me, all the hunters you've sent after me, did you hire any of 'em?"
"One more word, wermo, and I'll blow them all," Zerem warns.
He doesn't know, Cobb recalls, with the raise of his eyebrow. "You really think I forgot 'bout the chips? C'mon." He's almost embarrassed for the fool. "We could shoot you just as fast, anyhow. I have half a mind to get up close an' personal with it, but- quite frankly- I really don't want to be that close to ya. Might have a knife hidden over there somewhere, an', well," he gestures to his bloodied side with his left hand, his right unholstering his blaster and clicking the safety off. "I've already been stabbed today."
Those eyes are overcome with a sudden horror as he puts the pieces together, wide as disks- as if, after everything they've each done to get this far, he hadn't expected Cobb to kill him in the end. "Now, Vanth, hear me out-"
Bray had lied to him all those years ago, when he'd said he never had a chip in his skull like he had; he never escaped that life. Walked away from Tatooine just to get dragged back down into this mess. As a hunter of the runaways their master set him upon. The tall bastard's been the one sending men after him for all these years, and Bray was his last-ditch effort.
He'd really had no choice, and he'd decided that he'd rather die than kill the man he'd called his brother.
He presses down on the trigger.
Zerem howls as a blaster bolt pierces his gut, his body sagging bonelessly into the throne.
Cobb doesn't mean to step forward, but the next thing he knows, the barrel of his gun's pressing itself up against the front of the Pau'an's skull. "I'm listenin'," he growls, and lets another shot loose right between the monster's eyes.
The colossal form bows over, then, lifeless as the guards strewn across the room.
It's over.
He doesn't have but a moment to process it before-
Before a blastershot rings out, loud and clear, bouncing off the walls. Two of them.
The impact tears his leg from underneath him, and he pitches forward toward the ground, pain rippling up and down his body upon collision. The fall's ignited the fire in his torso wound, and he can feel copper at the back of his mouth, bubbling up to his lips. Disoriented and grabbing for his abused left leg, Cobb snarls through the agony. "What the hell?"
"Shit," Someone says, dropping their weapon with a clatter. "Sorry, sorry, sorry-"
Trala appears at his side, resting a gentle hand on his good shoulder to settle him before he can properly react to the sudden threat. "Cobb. It's okay. He didn't mean it."
It's the first time he's heard his name from someone else's mouth in weeks, and, somehow, it's all he needs to relax. The tension seeps from his body to the floor, and the growing haze around his mind feels a bit safer. A misfire. He's fine. The threat's done. He did it. I did it. I really killed the bastard.
"Are you going to be okay?" Trala asks, her voice soft in that foreign motherly concern of hers.
"Yeah. It's jus' the leg." He mumbles, shifting and then pulling himself upright. Now that he's out of danger, he can feel the two points in the limb that've been hit; his thigh, his knee. Nothing feels irreparable.
Cobb can hear someone arguing with the poor fella who'd pulled the trigger. He winces. His eyes are glued to Brarkesh Zerem's corpse. The specks of blood, the cooling hole in his head- it's all surreal to him. He's really gone…
The room is quiet.
"Hey." It's one of the galaxy's newest ex-slaves, all nerves- no wonder he accidentally shot me- who stands over them. "I'm so, so sorry."
Cobb lifts his eyes. He feels more tired than he ever has before. He's not even mad at the guy. "Jus' help me up."
.
Cobb makes sure everyone is somewhat sure of what they want to do with themselves before they leave and head off into the unknown. When they ask him where he'll go, he asks himself the same thing. Maybe it's time he embraces his retirement for what it is. But, first, he has one more thing to do before he leaves for Tatooine.
*kung = "scum" in Huttese
**"Chuba doompa, dopa-maskey kung." = "You low-down, two-faced scum." in Huttese
***Wermo = "stupid person", "idiot", "worm", or (slang) "boy" in Huttese